5 ways to make more time for your friends

Relationships

5 ways to make more time for your friends

The older we get, the more commitments we seem to have. Spouses, children and careers fill our days, leaving little time for other pursuits. Fitting in time for friends is often one of the first things to fall to the bottom of our to-do lists. And getting out and meeting new people can be even more daunting.

Still, no matter how busy you are it's always important to maintain -- and expand -- your social circle.

Judi Siklos, a Toronto-based psychotherapist, offers her wise advice on creating more time for friendships.

"Being able to spend time with your friends and having enjoyment in your life is one of the most important things you can do to combat stress," she says. "It's important for everyone -- but especially for busy people -- to carve out time for their friends." Siklos shares five ways for doing just that.

1. Get together to work on common goalsMany of us set goals this year to get in better shape. However, with your tight schedule and endless responsibilities, meeting that goal can seem nearly impossible. Add fitting in time for friends to your list andgoing to the gym just gets pushed further out of mind. Rather than having to choose between your weekly workouts or seeing a friend, why not do both?

Team up with a fitness-minded friend and work on meeting that get-fit goal together, advises Siklos. "If you do a weekly class or a weekly workout with your friend, then you're getting the double benefit of meeting another goal in your life as well as spending time with a friend," she says.

2. Schedule time for friends into your calendarHow many times have we told our friends that we'll get together soon or that we'll give them a call sometime? It's easy for these promises to get lost in the weekly chaos. Siklos suggests making these get-togethers a priority.

"When someone has a doctor's appointment or their kid has a soccer game, they don't waffle and say 'I'm busy, I can't do it.' They do it because it's a priority," she says.

So treat your friends, and more importantly yourself, as a priority. "By treating yourself as a priority you make time for the things that are important to you," says Siklos.

Page 1 of 2 -- Check out more fun and easy ways to make time for your friends on page 23. Find common ground and see each other more oftenMany of us share a lot of common ground with our friends -- otherwise we wouldn't be friends, right? Use this to your advantage, suggests Siklos.

"Whether it's your kids having a play date, or you both have pets and you go for a walk together, those are things you have to do in your day," she explains. Find out what you and your friends have in common in your days and combine your task lists in order to eke out quality time during a busy week.

4. Branch out and try new thingsAs we progress through life it's easy to become comfortable with our current circle of friends. However, it's important to not only maintain your current social circle, but to also branch out from it.

"Most research will show that a truly healthy person will have a mix of old friends and new friends," Siklos says. "I think that from my clients' experiences -- as well as my own -- when you go and do new things and meet new people, yes sometimes it's frightening or sometimes it can cause anxieties, but it's actually really beneficial to broaden your circle."5. Use any occasion as an excuse to get togetherGetting together with a friend doesn't always have to be the social event of the year. Sometimes a nice, quiet evening in together can be just as beneficial (if not more so) than a night on the town. Siklos suggests doing something as simple as inviting a friend over to watch the Oscars or the Super Bowl. Ask your spouse to look after the kids so you can enjoy some time with your friend. Even just a few hours will give you both a boost and allow you to reconnect, she says.

Friends are important to our well-being, and it's beneficial to maintain those connections despite busy lives and overloaded schedules. Good friends will be around through the good and the bad, and will offer support no matter what you're going through.

With good friends "your positives and joys in life are magnified and your sorrows are shared," says Siklos.

Quick & Easy

Easy pasta salad recipes

Planning a picnic or family barbecue anytime soon? Give yourself one less thing to worry about and go for one of our easy pasta salad recipes. It's sure to be a hit!

Pasta salads are great to make ahead, and are absolute tops for large groups. They also take the cake for being an extremely versatile dish – with a host of added ingredients, toppings and dressings, simple pasta salads can go from humble side to star entrée in no time.

We asked Test Kitchen food specialist Amanda Barnier to share some top tips for preparing pasta salads, and why they're a crowd favourite. Here's what she had to share:

Pasta salads: the perfect make-ahead dish
"Pasta salads can easily be prepped in advance and can feed a crowd with little effort," Amanda says. "It can be made in advance and cooled immediately after cooking."

One important tip to remember, she adds, is to "add dressing the day it's being served, because it will quickly absorb the dressing."

Pasta salad favourites
"I like using cheese filled tortellini for a hearty salad. Soba and rice noodles are great with Asian dressings, whole grain and coloured pastas," Amanda says.

How to store pasta salads
"Keep salads well wrapped and refrigerated," she says. "Salad has the same storage life as its ingredients. Seafood is best eaten within 2 days, and chicken (within) 2 to 3 days. If traveling, be sure to store pasta salads in coolers packed with lots of ice."

"Proteins should not be within 4 C and 60 C for longer than a four hour period," she adds.

The long and short of it: best pasta shapes
"Short shapes are best with vinaigrettes and creamy dressings, and chunky ingredients such as chopped vegetables and beans," Amanda says.

Tips for making pasta salad
"If making a pasta salad in advance, rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and drain well," she advises. "Add dressing just prior to serving. Pasta quickly absorbs liquids; if the dressing is added too soon, the pasta will absorb it."

So whether you prefer chunky pasta salads with a cool, creamy dressing perfect for summer picnics, or entrée-worthy pasta salads with long rice noodles and a tangy vinaigrette, you're sure to find a new favourite with from our collection.

Mediterranean Orzo Salad
This salad highlights many fresh flavours of the Mediterranean and is at its best when made with good-quality olive oil.

Photography by Jeff Coulson

The Best Macaroni Salad
This is a great keeper salad and perfect for a picnic or BBQ. Just make sure you pack it with plenty of ice packs to keep it nice and cold, both during transportation and at the table.

Photography by Annabelle Waugh

Chicken, Broccoli and Bocconcini Pasta Salad
Make this pasta salad for the whole family—the kids will love the mild dressing and round bocconcini cheese, while the adults will appreciate it as a light alternative to a sandwich.

Warm Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Salad
The dressing lends a taste of summer any time of year. The red peppers provide vitamins A and C and potassium. Quick and easy to make, this salad is perfect to take to a last-minute potluck or picnic.

Mind & Spirit

How to make a calming shower bomb

Mind & Spirit

How to make a calming shower bomb

Here's how to make your own shower bomb with essential oils for a whole new level of relaxation.

If you enjoy a hot shower or bath to help you relax at the end of a stress-filled day, you'll love these quick DIY shower bombs that allow you to add a soothing essential oil blend to your shower's steam. Essential oils have long been used to aid everything from sleep to energy.

Now Solutions created this recipe to help you get the benefits of essential oils through inhaling the scented steam of your shower—it's like your own home spa treatment. When these scents are diffused through steam, they reach the nerves in the olfactory cavity, which go right to the brain, so you're likely to feel the calming effects right away.

How to make your own shower bomb
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a mini-muffin tin with foil liners. Mix 1 cup of baking soda with 1/3 cup of water to form a thick paste. Pour by tablespoon into the mini-muffin cups. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Top with several drops of essential oils.

For a shower bomb that will help you relax and unwind, Now recommends a blend of one drop of chamomile oil, two drops of lavender oil and two drops of sandalwood blend oil. But you can make your own blend, too. Clove essential oil is also soothing and comforting, as is ylang ylang. Or, if you're looking for a pick-me-up to start your day with, basil essential oil is known to be energizing, and bergamot and lemon are both uplifting scents.

When your shower bomb is ready, place it on your shower floor and enjoy the relaxing vapours.

Culture & Entertainment

Hygge: The Art of "Finding Magic in the Ordinary"

Culture & Entertainment

Hygge: The Art of "Finding Magic in the Ordinary"

Think about some of your warmest memories—drinking wine and reminiscing with girlfriends, chatting with your mom while she whips up a batch of your favourite muffins, having a dinner date that leads to cocktails that leads to stargazing by the water because neither of you want the night to end—that’s hygge. It’s finding happiness in the every day, and all you need to be able to attain it is to know about it.

Some say the Danish word is pronounced “hooga” but according to Marie Tourell Søderberg, author of Hygge: The Danish Art of Happiness, it’s like this: The “y” is similar to the French “y” sound—think “huge,” and the “gge” sounds like the first syllable in “girl.” But, it doesn’t really matter how you say "hygge"—you just need to get it. And to get it, you need to know where it comes from.

Hygge originates from a Norwegian word that means “well-being,” and in English, it means “coziness,” but it’s much more than that. Hygge is appreciating the little things in life. It’s “all the small things that make us feel safe, loved and satisfied,” says Søderberg. Hygge is doing things with warmth and joy, being present in the moment, and having a feeling of home—in other words, the Danish way of life.

Denmark is ranked as one of the happiest nations in the world, and hygge is likely an “ingredient in the Danish recipe for happiness,” says author Meik Wiking in his book, The Little Book of Hygge. Compared to other Europeans, Danes “meet most often with their friends and family and feel the calmest and most peaceful.” And that’s why there’s a growing interest in hygge.

Books on the subject are quickly filling up store shelves—a simple Indigo search will pull up more than five books on hygge, all of which have come out in the later half of 2016 (including Søderberg’s and Wiking’s) or will be coming out in the early months of 2017—just in time for winter, which is pretty much the reason why hygge exists.

In her book, Søderberg says, “It originated due to the need to create joy, warmth and togetherness in a country that boasts long, cold winters”—something Canadians can relate to. Hygge encourages you to embrace the cold months instead of waiting for the sun to shine again. But, anyone, anywhere, can enjoy the benefits of hygge any time of year, as it’s all about sharing moments with those you love, indulging in comfort foods, and taking in the sights and sounds around you.

Understanding hygge and having a name for it helps you recognize it and look for it in your day-to-day life. “Including it in our daily narratives and language makes us aware of the qualities of the word. Saying, ‘let’s hygge tonight,’ states a clear intention of what qualities we want our evening to have—presence, lovingness, relaxed, informal—all these qualities in one word,” says Søderberg.

Intimate candlelit dinner parties, mulled wine by a fire and ice skating under twinkling lights are classic hygge moments, but it can also be found when you're not expecting it. Hygge can happen in the least hyggelig (the adjective form of “hygge”) locations or in those in-between moments throughout your day—like when you're hiding from the rain under an awning with a friend, listening to a sax player as you wait for the next subway to arrive, or laughing with your sister over the phone.

Although hygge can happen anywhere, the most common place for it is at home, so it helps to make your living quarters feel warm, safe and welcoming—think candles, warm textiles and plenty of personal touches. In Søderberg’s book, she shares decorating advice from Nordic interior design expert Christina B. Kjeldsen: “The hygge comes when you feel that the person behind the surroundings is completely comfortable with his or her choices, but at the same time isn’t afraid of decorating intuitively and trying out new things and ideas…When you put thoughtfulness into how and why you have chosen to surround yourself with particular furniture, objects, art, flowers, knick-knacks, curtains—whatever—then you relax and your guests will see and know you for who you are.”

But, it’s important not to feel pressure to create a perfect space or occasion and force hygge. Decorate your space for you and not how you think it should be, and let moments unfold naturally—something that can be all too rare in this social media age. Søderberg warns, “The most hyggelig evening can look like a disaster in a picture, and opposite—the least hyggelig can look like a perfect evening.” But, if you have a true hyggling moment, it’ll be a “piece of art to capture the exact sense of an atmosphere in a photo.”

So, keep hygge on your mind. Make plans to hygge, be present in every moment, and soak up life's glories. And if you do, you’ll be gifted with the ability to, as Søderberg says, “[find] the magic in the ordinary.”